Column: Flag football at the Olympics? Stop chuckling, it might happen

Flag football at the Olympics? Then again, the Summer Games are supposed to be for the best athletes in sports that are popular across a wide range of nations, a standard that flag football doesn’t come close to meeting. “If others are able to watch me and some of my teammates go out and compete in the Olympics, that would be just amazing.” Madison Fulford, a former college track athlete who is now a 28-year-old rookie on the women’s national team, was asked how she responds to those who say flag football has no business in the Olympics. That seems like a stretch, especially since many consider flag football nothing more than a watered-down version of a violent game that parents let kids play growing up so they don’t get hurt, or maybe one that’s goofed around with on the intramural fields at college. It takes elite skills to be on this team.” The 5-on-5 version of flag football got a tryout last summer at the World Games, an Olympic-modeled event for sports that aren’t on the Olympic program.